A cafeteria or fast food service will consume a large number of heads of lettuce each day. The lettuce is used in salads, and other foods. Lettuce is easily cut into fragments that are bite size; however, people do not like cut lettuce because it is difficult to manipulate with a fork. Therefore, the lettuce, especially when used at a salad bar, must be torn into bite size portions. This is time consuming and is also a potential source of contamination because the head of lettuce must be intimately handled by the person preparing the torn lettuce. It would therefore be more sanitary and less costly if the intact or whole head of lettuce could be washed, the core and any unwanted outer leaves removed, and then mechanically torn into suitable bite size portions. This avoids any subsequent, intimate human contact with the cleaned head of lettuce. Method and apparatus for achieving this desirable goal is the subject of the present invention.